Minimum

The AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D paired with the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER lands at rank 2509 out of 2939 tested combinations in Minimum, placing it in the bottom 15% of all recorded system pairings. This rank reflects a profound imbalance: the CPU is a flagship-class part operating at the 92nd percentile among all processors, while the GPU sits at the 53rd percentile among all graphics cards. The data shows a system where the silicon is capable of far more than the graphics subsystem can deliver, making the overall rank a story of bottlenecked potential rather than raw inadequacy.

How This Combo Ranks

The combo’s position at 2509 of 2939 is a direct consequence of pairing a top-tier processor with a mid-range, end-of-life graphics card. In the benchmark hierarchy, the Ryzen 7 9850X3D achieves an average benchmark score of 58386, placing it in the 92nd percentile of all CPUs. Its nearest rivals include the Intel Xeon Platinum 8260M (avg score 58323, deltaPct 0.1) and the Intel Core i9-14900 (avg score 58115, deltaPct 0.5), showing it trades blows with high-end server and desktop parts. Meanwhile, the GTX 1660 SUPER averages 12986 in GPU benchmarks, sitting at the 53rd percentile, with rivals like the AMD Radeon RX 580 (avg score 12928, deltaPct 0.4) and the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 Ti Mobile (avg score 12940, deltaPct 0.4). The delta between these components is stark: the CPU outperforms its immediate rivals by fractions of a percent, while the GPU is essentially level with decade-old cards.

In game-specific terms, this rank means the system falls behind the vast majority of tested configurations. At 1080p Ultra, the combo produces 64 FPS, which is playable but not exceptional. The bottleneck is evident when comparing resolutions: at 4K Ultra, the average drops to 22 FPS, a figure that suggests the GPU is overwhelmed. The CPU’s 8 cores and 16 threads, with a boost clock of 5.60 GHz, are more than sufficient for this 2014 third-person shooter, but the GTX 1660 SUPER’s 6 GB of GDDR6 memory and 192-bit bus become the limiting factor. The rank is not a condemnation of either part individually, but rather a mathematical outcome of their pairing; the data indicates the CPU is idle much of the time, waiting on the GPU to render frames.

GPU Role

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER is built on the Turing architecture using the TU116 chip, fabricated on a 12 nm process at TSMC. It features 1408 shading units, 88 texture mapping units, and 48 ROPs, with a base clock of 1530 MHz and a boost clock of 1785 MHz. The memory subsystem consists of 6 GB of GDDR6 on a 192-bit bus, delivering a bandwidth of 336.0 GB/s with a memory clock of 1750 MHz (14 Gbps effective). This configuration yields a pixel rate of 85.68 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 157.1 GTexel/s, with FP32 performance of 5.027 TFLOPS.

In Minimum, the GPU’s role is decisive. At 1080p Low, the combo achieves 131 FPS, showing the card can handle the game’s lighter settings. However, pushing to 1080p Ultra drops the average to 64 FPS, a 51% reduction. At 4K, the GPU’s limitations become severe: Low settings yield 46 FPS, Medium drops to 35 FPS (with min FPS of 30 and max of 40), High produces 29 FPS, and Ultra falls to 22 FPS. The memory bandwidth of 336.0 GB/s appears sufficient for 1080p, but the 6 GB VRAM capacity and the card’s raw compute are stretched thin at higher resolutions. The data suggests the GPU is the primary constraint: the CPU’s PassMark physics score of 4171 and multithread score of 41318 indicate it can feed frames far faster than the GTX 1660 SUPER can render them. The GPU’s percentile rank of 53 versus the CPU’s 92 quantifies this mismatch.

Settings Recommendations

Based on the measured FPS rows, the optimal balance between visual quality and performance occurs at 1080p Medium. At this setting, the combo delivers an average of 100 FPS with a minimum of 85 and a maximum of 115, providing smooth gameplay with a reasonable margin above the 60 FPS threshold. Dropping to 1080p Low yields 131 FPS, which is faster but sacrifices visual fidelity. The jump from Medium to High at 1080p costs 16 FPS (100 to 84), while the jump from High to Ultra costs another 20 FPS (84 to 64), making Ultra the least efficient setting for the visual gain.

At 1440p, the Medium preset is the highest playable option, producing 65 FPS (min 55, max 74). High at 1440p drops to 54 FPS, which is borderline, and Ultra falls to 41 FPS, which is not recommended for consistent play. At 4K, no setting achieves 60 FPS; Low is the best at 46 FPS, but even that is below the ideal threshold. The data indicates that 1080p Medium is the sweet spot, offering 100 FPS average, which is 56% higher than the 64 FPS at Ultra. For players prioritizing frame rate, 1080p Low at 131 FPS is the maximum achievable, but the diminishing returns from Low to Medium suggest the latter is the better trade-off. The 1440p Medium results (65 FPS) also show the card can handle a resolution upgrade if the user accepts the lower frame rate.

FAQ

*Q: What is the best resolution and settings combo for this system in Minimum?*

A: The data shows 1080p Medium as the optimal choice, delivering an average of 100 FPS (min 85, max 115). This is the highest settings level that maintains a comfortable margin above 60 FPS; 1080p High drops to 84 FPS and Ultra to 64 FPS.

*Q: Can this system handle 4K resolution in Minimum?*

A: Yes, but not at playable frame rates. At 4K Low, the average is 46 FPS; Medium drops to 35 FPS; High to 29 FPS; and Ultra to 22 FPS. None of these meet the 60 FPS standard, so 4K is only viable if the user accepts sub-60 performance.

Q: How does the CPU compare to its nearest rivals?

A: The Ryzen 7 9850X3D has an average benchmark score of 58386, placing it 0.1% ahead of the Intel Xeon Platinum 8260M (58323) and 0.5% ahead of the Intel Core i9-14900 (58115). It trails the Intel Xeon w5-2545 by 0.2% and the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 470 by 0.7%.

Q: How does the GPU compare to its nearest rivals?

A: The GTX 1660 SUPER averages 12986, which is 0.4% ahead of the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 Ti Mobile (12940) and the AMD Radeon RX 580 (12928), but 0.7% behind the NVIDIA Tesla M2090 (13075) and 0.9% ahead of the AMD Radeon 740M (12870).

Q: What is the frame rate difference between 1080p and 1440p at Medium settings?

A: At 1080p Medium, the average is 100 FPS. At 1440p Medium, the average drops to 65 FPS, a 35% reduction. The minimum FPS also falls from 85 to 55, indicating a significant performance hit from the resolution increase.

Q: Is the CPU or GPU the limiting factor in this system?

A: The GPU is clearly the limiting factor. The CPU ranks in the 92nd percentile among all processors, while the GPU ranks in the 53rd percentile. At 4K Ultra, the system averages 22 FPS, which reflects the GPU’s inability to handle the load, not the CPU’s capability, as the latter has a boost clock of 5.60 GHz and 8 cores.

Resolution Scaling

The FPS data shows a steep drop as resolution increases, which is typical for a GPU-bound system. At Medium settings, the average FPS falls from 100 at 1080p to 65 at 1440p (a 35% decrease), and then to 35 at 4K (a 65% decrease from 1080p). The pattern is consistent across all settings: Low goes from 131 at 1080p to 85 at 1440p to 46 at 4K; High goes from 84 to 54 to 29; Ultra goes from 64 to 41 to 22. The scaling is roughly linear with pixel count, suggesting the GPU’s fill rate and memory bandwidth are the primary constraints.

The 4K results are particularly telling. At 4K Low, the system produces 46 FPS, which is 35% of the 1080p Low figure of 131 FPS. This drop is larger than the pure pixel count increase (4K has 4 times the pixels of 1080p), indicating that the GPU’s 6 GB VRAM and 336.0 GB/s bandwidth are insufficient for the higher resolution, causing additional overhead. The min FPS data at Medium settings shows the floor dropping from 85 at 1080p to 55 at 1440p to 30 at 4K, meaning the frame pacing degrades significantly at higher resolutions. This data points to the GTX 1660 SUPER as the bottleneck; the CPU’s 89.6 GB/s memory bandwidth and 96 MB L3 cache are not strained by these resolutions, as the game is over a decade old and the processor is overkill for its computational demands.

CPU Role

The AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D is a Zen 5 (Granite Ridge) architecture processor built on a 4 nm TSMC process, featuring 8 cores and 16 threads. It has a base clock of 4.70 GHz and a boost clock of 5.60 GHz, with a TDP of 120 W. The cache hierarchy includes 80 KB of L1 per core, 1 MB of L2 per core, and a substantial 96 MB of shared L3 cache. Memory support is DDR5 on a dual-channel bus with a bandwidth of 89.6 GB/s, and it supports ECC memory. The CPU’s benchmark scores are impressive: Cinebench R23 multicore reaches 22807, single-core 2228, and PassMark multithread scores 41318.

In Minimum, the CPU’s role is largely to feed the GPU without becoming a bottleneck, and the data confirms it does so easily. The game, released in 2014, has modest CPU demands, and the Ryzen 7 9850X3D’s single-thread performance (PassMark single-thread score of 4704) is more than adequate for the game’s logic. The CPU’s 92nd percentile ranking means it outperforms the vast majority of processors, and its nearest rivals—such as the Intel Core i9-14900 with a deltaPct of 0.5—show it is at the top of the heap. However, this performance is untapped in this pairing. At 1080p Low, the system hits 131 FPS, which is likely near the game’s engine limits, but at higher settings, the GPU’s 5.027 TFLOPS of FP32 compute becomes the ceiling.

The CPU’s high core count and 96 MB L3 cache are irrelevant for this game, as it does not scale across 8 cores effectively. The data shows the CPU’s PassMark physics score of 4171 and data compression score of 474501, which are relevant to synthetic workloads, but in Minimum, the frame rates are dictated by the GPU’s pixel rate of 85.68 GPixel/s and texture rate of 157.1 GTexel/s. The CPU is not the limiting factor at any resolution; the proof is that going from 1080p to 4K at the same settings reduces FPS by roughly 60-70%, which is a GPU-bound symptom. The CPU’s 5.60 GHz boost clock ensures it never stalls the GPU, but the latter’s 12 nm process and 6 GB memory hold the system back from what the processor could otherwise deliver.